Merope Gaunt:Before Hogwarts
by OracleGoddessOfDelphi
Summary: Self explanatory. Merope leaves her awful family at 9 yrs old & goes to Ministry custody. From there she will go to Hogwarts. Year 1900 AD. After C6, the story will go 1 month in each chapter.
1. Chapter 1

The Gaunt family were mean, cruel and the worst family to live with; being in Albania had nothing to do with it. At least that's what Merope Gaunt thought, her mother died when she was two years old, and her father, lets just say that he was a person who treat his only daughter, and in her opinion, the only sane person in her family, like a slave. Not to mention her father was so obsessed with pureblood mania that he once said that he would rather be _six feet under_ than see his children marry a filthy Mudblood.

So she decided that she had to get away from all of this, and one day, when her father was still asleep, she took the two most prized Gaunt family heirlooms from her father, the Peverell Ring and Slytherin's Locket, with some of her possessions including the key to the Gaunt's Gringotts vault (not that they ever used it) and ran. Merope ran out of the house with all her might and speed because she just her father, Marvolo, wake up, as usual, rather late.

Merope had reached the forest by dusk and stopped there for the night. Even though she was only seven years old, she still knew how to take care of herself for a few days as she had gone out before without any warning given to her father, but that was usually to search for food. Merope had tried to imagine Marvolo's face when he realised that she would not be returning to him, ever.

At this picture she laughed so hysterically that her head swung back and hit the trunk of the tree that she was leaning against. "Ow, that hurt!" Merope exclaimed in an annoyed tone of voice. _Hang on, trees aren't hollow_, she thought intelligently. Merope stood up, and faced the tree. She had a look on her face that would make you as her _thinking_ pose. _Good thing I "accidentally" took Morfin's wand,_ she thought. She got the wand out, and thought in her mind what she wanted to do. Merope was rather intelligent for her age, but rather shy. She made a hole in the bark, only a small hole and put her hand in found something, it was cold and felt like metal, silver perhaps. She grabbed a hold of it and began to pull it out of the tree.


	2. Chapter 2

She pulled the silvery metal object out of the tree and gasped. There was a bronze-coloured tiara and a silver locket with a Latin inscription on it.

The inscription read

"_Ut meus filia Helena, ex vestri matris, Rowena."_

_Hang on,_ Merope thought,_ that mean 'To my daughter Helena, from your mother Rowena.' Oh Merlin and Hogwarts founders, I found the locket that belonged to Ravenclaw's daughter._ She looked at the tiara. _Not a tiara, _Merope thought, _a diadem. Ravenclaw's diadem. _"I've found Ravenclaw's diadem! Now I better sleep, for I have far to go." Merope muttered to herself. She wrapped her thick winter cloak around herself and drifted into a slumber.

Merope woke the next morning about an hour after the dawn. She yawned and stretched her arms and got up, and continued her long journey to London. She had recently inherited just over a ¼ of a billion galleons & 250,000,000 pounds (Muggle Money), from her aunt Mirabella Malfoy, along with the Flavius Estate, which she couldn't use until she was seventeen years of age. Her father and brother did not inherit a thing. She knew her aunt favoured her. She had the key to the Gringotts vault where all this money was kept, plus on her person were two priceless family heirlooms. She firmly promised herself that she wouldn't hand them over to the Department of Historical Artefacts belonging to Witches & Wizards, but she might let them record them into their magical archives.

Three weeks later, Merope reached the Ministry of Magic; it was about noon when she got there, so she decided to go to the Department of Wizarding Minors under Legal Custody. With her cloak wrapped around her shoulders she walked to the visitor's entrance and closed the door behind her.

"Name and reason for visit" said a raspy voice.

"Merope Gaunt, I'm here to visit the Department of Wizarding Minors under Legal Custody and the Department of Historical Artefacts belonging to Witches & Wizards" Merope said firmly.

"Here is your visitor's badge, I judge you may be returning so you may keep this badge, thank you very much and have a nice day," the raspy voice said again.

Merope descended into the Ministry and pinned her badge to the thin winter cloak she was wearing. She followed the directions to the Department of Wizarding Minors under Legal Custody. Merope walked to one of the offices and knocked.

"Come in," said a gentle woman's voice.

Merope walked into the woman's office

"I suppose you want to be in our custody, don't you," the woman said politely "we don't many children in here with the Muggle Queen's new laws, but in any case, sit down, and tell me about yourself."

"My name is Merope Gaunt, I'm nine years old, born on August 15th 1890." Merope said to the polite woman, "I'm from Little Hangleton, Albania."

"You travelled here, all by yourself?" the woman asked incredulously.

"Yes," Merope stuttered, "Also I inherited a lot from my aunt Mirabella Malfoy."

The woman scribbled everything Merope said onto a piece of parchment and then gave it to Merope and said; "Sign here please," gesturing to the bottom of the parchment. Merope took a quill and signed the parchment

_Merope S. Gaunt_

"Thank you miss, I'll file this within the hour, the place you'll stay is in Diagon Alley, Gringotts too, it's called 'Home for Younglings', it will your home until you leave Hogwarts, I'll make sure you're on the list," said the woman.

"It is I who should be thanking you, for giving me a new home," Merope said with a huge smile on her face.


	3. Chapter 3

The Department of Historical Artefacts belonging to Witches & Wizards.

_It's now or never,_ Merope thought. Merope Gaunt walked into the office belonged to the Head of the Department of Historical Artefacts belonging to Witches & Wizards.

This time there was a man sitting at the desk.

"What do you want, little girl," the man snapped, "I have artefacts to appraise and file."

"I found two artefacts in an Albanian forest that I think you'd like to look at, sir," Merope said to the man politely.

"And what would they be, girl," the man said, "as Head of the Department, I prefer appraising rather valuable artefacts."

Merope pulled out the locket and the diadem, and said "What about priceless ones." She placed the two artefacts on the grumpy man's tidy desk.

The man started when he saw the bronze diadem.

"Where'd you find that?" the man said, with an amount of awe that would make his eyes pop out.

"In a hollow tree, in an Albanian forest," Merope replied matter-of-factly.

The man did a few well-chosen spells that made his eyes widen even more.

"Young lady, you're getting full credit, the Daily Prophet is going to have a field day," the man squeaked. He jumped up, and he was so ecstatic you would have thought he was about to do a jig.

"Do you mean the newspaper," Merope asked shyly, she was shaking timidly.

"Of course, we don't many priceless artefacts, let alone ones belonging to the Hogwarts founders. The Ministry has been looking for these for centuries," the man said loudly and ecstatically.

The door of the man's office burst open. In the doorway was the Minister for Magic.

"Anything I can do for you, Minister," the man said annoyed, the Minister had in fact interrupted his ecstatic mood.

"Yes, Fudge, you can be quiet, half the Ministry can hear you, and why, in Merlin's name, are you so happy?" the Minister said.

"Because, sir, this little girl's gone 'n' brought me two priceless artefacts ("So," the Minister said) and one of 'em is Ravenclaw's diadem." Fudge said.

"WHAT," the Minister yelled. People began to poke their heads out of their offices.

"The papers are going to have a field day, Fudge, and with this news it'll be going on for days," the Minister said in a shocked voice.

"That's what I told the girl, Minister," Fudge said, "I can see the front page right now, 'Nine year old witch finds Ravenclaw's long lost diadem'."

"As long as I'm not getting interviewed by the reporters from the Daily Prophet, then you can write whatever you want. Is that clear?" Merope said the older men as though she were issuing an order.

The men gulped. Women, let alone nine-year-old girls hardly ever intimidated them.

"Yes, Miss Gaunt," both men stuttered.

"Do you have anymore priceless artefacts that you want to give to the Ministry of Magic?" Fudge asked politely and with curiosity.

Merope had already stood up, and was half way out the door when Fudge had asked her this; she turned around to face him and said very clearly, "Not today, and yes, I have others, but you _won't_ be keeping them, because they are _my_ family heirlooms, _but_ you can record their recovery and take photographs."

Merope left the room the room without another word. She went to Diagon Alley by Floo powder.


	4. Chapter 4

When Merope arrived in Diagon Alley there weren't many people there. She looked at a clock in one of the shops; it read June 22nd 1900, 5:00pm.

_I was in the Ministry for five hours, _Merope thought, _I really need to keep track of time._

Merope decided that before she went to her new home, is that she would go to Gringotts and withdraw some money, both Wizarding and Muggle, from her new vault as her aunt had asked the Ministry to put it Merope's name.

She entered Gringotts bank. The goblins were bustling around, getting ready to close for the night. There was a mural on one of the front doors; it read

_Enter stranger but take heed_

_Of what awaits the sin of greed_

_For those who take but do not earn_

_Must pay most dearly in there turn_

_For, if you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours_

_Thief, you have been warned beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there_

_I think you'd be mad to try and rob this place, _Merope thought. She walked up to one of the desks. One the desk next to her, one the goblins was weighing aquamarines the size of coals. Merope felt her eyes widen at the mere sight of the gigantic gemstones.

"Is there something I can help you with?" said the voice in front of her.

Merope turned to face the owner of the voice. She gulped. The goblin that the voice belonged to looked rather intimidating.

"Um, actually yes, there is something you can help me with," Merope stuttered, "Miss Merope Gaunt wishes to make a withdrawal."

"Bit young you are," the goblin said, "but nevertheless we'll take you down to your vault before we close."

Merope was quickly taken by the hand that dragged her to a cart, which led her deep, underground to her late aunt's vault. She and the goblin got off the cart, which was in front a vault with the numbers 628 engraved above it. Before she got off the cart the goblin asked for the lamp, and she gave it to him. They were in front of the vault where the lock was, when the goblin handed her back the lamp and said,

"Key please,"

I handed him the key, and he unlocked the door to the vault. I stood there in awe at the mountains of gold, silver and bronze coins standing in the vault along with all the jewels her Aunt Mirabella had left for her when she would get married.

_That's a lot of money and a lot of jewels,_ Merope thought.

"I'll withdraw 5,000 galleons, 100 sickles, 150 knuts, and 1,000 pound sterling," Merope asked the goblin politely, "pound sterling in a separate bag please."

The goblin politely obliged. He filled one bag with galleons, sickles and knuts, and the other with British pound sterling.

"Thank you," Merope said, and she put the money beneath her thin summer cloak.

Merope and the goblin went back up to the atrium of the bank; she thanked the goblins for their services and left the bank.

It was five-thirty. Merope went to "Home for Younglings" and found that the rooms were in alphabetical order and more than half of them were empty, she found her room, on the door was a plate that said _Gaunt, Merope_. She went inside the room. She gasped. The room was extremely big compared the room at her father's cottage. The room was obviously charmed to be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

The bags of money were placed on her desk; her very first desk. The shoulder bag she had brought on her journey, she dropped that next to the wardrobe, which was in the corner next to the chest of drawers. Merope used her brother's wand to open the wardrobe and magicked all her old dresses into the wardrobe. She unpacked the only nightgown she owned, and placed it on the bed. Merope then undid the fastenings of her cloak, and draped it on her desk chair.

Suddenly, she heard the faint sound of a bell ringing.

_The bell must be for dinner, _she thought.

She ran down to the dining hall and got there before the last chime. There were five tables, three of which were empty because the children who usually sat there, were at Hogwarts and would not be back until July 1st, the other two tables had about sixty children sitting at each of them.

Merope sat at the second table, which happened to be nearest to her, it consisted of children between the ages of 6 and 11. At the table, simple cutlery and crockery was laid in front of each child, but in the middle of the table there were huge plates and big shallow bowls that had yet to be filled with food, and large sparkling silver pitchers that were empty of any liquid.

Almost in an instant, foods filled the plates and bowls while different drinks filled the many silver pitchers.

"Wow," Merope gasped.

She had never seen so much food in one place her entire life.

There was French fries, chicken legs, French onion soup, mashed potatoes, spaghetti bolognaise, garlic bread, minestrone soup, satay beef, and Greek salad.

Merope had a bit of everything except the Greek salad. Everything was so delicious and she was so full, she thought she couldn't eat anything else, well that was until she saw this wonderful sight.

What was left of the main course melted away from the plates and was replaced by desserts: caramel fudge, apple pie, chocolate gateaux, treacle tart and many tubs of vanilla and chocolate ice-cream. She ate a bit of absolutely everything. When everyone was finished, the leftovers melted away leaving the crockery sparkling clean; as though they were never even used.

Merope went up to her room and sat on her bed. The walls of her room were bare except for a large blackboard hanging above her desk, she also had her very own bathroom which consisted of a toilet, basin, shower and bathtub. Merope washed her face, brushed her teeth, combed her hair then changed into her nightgown and went to bed. She had definitely had enough excitement and surprises for one day.


	5. Chapter 5

Merope woke up on June 23rd just in time for breakfast. She quickly scrambled out of bed and got dressed hastily. Today it was cooked breakfast. Merope spooned everything in sight, well… a bit of everything, onto her plate and ate like a hungry hound. When she'd finished, she dashed upstairs and whipped on her cloak, grabbed the money bag filled with Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, along with her shoulder-bag and quickly ran out the door to explore Diagon Alley.

The first place Merope went was Ollivander's; she did after all need her own wand instead of the one she stole from her brother. She opened the door to the shop, the bell hanging above the doorframe made a tinkling sound. A man appeared, Merope assumed that he was Mr Ollivander.

"I'm looking for a wand," Merope asked.

"Of course you are," Ollivander replied, "everybody does one day. Let's see, are left or right handed?"

"Right handed," Merope answered.

Merope tried many different wands and was completely unsuccessful. Ollivander knew he had never failed and gave Merope another to try. When she took the wand from his hand, she instantly felt warmth under her fingertips.

"11 ½ inches, rosewood and phoenix feather. Very powerful wand, very powerful indeed," Ollivander stated.

Merope paid Ollivander seven gold galleons, she thanked the man greatly. She left the shop placed her wand carefully beneath her cloak and went to explore the rest of Diagon Alley.

Knowing her love of books, Merope went to Flourish & Blotts, the bookshop in Diagon Alley. The place was a haven and a heaven. There were books about Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, Quidditch, Famous Wizards', and even Cooking by Magic. Merope picked out her books and went to the counter to pay for them, she bought:

_A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_

_An Intermediate Guide to Transfiguration_

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_

_Magical Theory_

_Magical Draughts and Potions_

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and_

_Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy._

"You must love books," the cashier commented.

Merope paid him 250 galleons and put the new books in her shoulder bag, she then left Flourish and Blotts to go to the Owlery.

The first owl she saw was staring at her intently, it was a white, snowy owl. Merope fell in love with the owl the moment she saw it. She bought the owl without hesitation, along with some owl treats, and went straight back to the orphanage.

For lunch, Merope had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. It was the best roast beef, hell, it was the best lunch she had ever had in her whole life.

She went up to her room, slammed the money on the desk, crammed the books into the bookshelf, and grabs another 50 galleons, 15 sickles & 20 Knuts. She dashed out again to buy dress material from Twillfit & Tattings.

Merope was increasingly enjoying her new freedom, it was much better than being with her blood relatives.

The woman at the counter of the shop was confused that Merope was only buying material. She bought green thread, silver thread, dark green and emerald green materials, green ribbon and silver ribbon. She paid the woman 25 galleons and 3 sickles.

After Merope bought her dress materials she went back to the Wizarding orphanage. She already knew how to make clothes by magic, for her father couldn't do anything for himself, so he forced Merope to do it all. She spent the afternoon making five dresses; one dress for formals, one for photographs, and three for everyday-wear.

Dinner on Monday night was butter chicken curry and rice, it was absolutely delicious; June 23rd 1900 couldn't have been better.

For the rest of the week, nothing interesting happened; just the usual of routine of Merope trying to learn spells, charms, jinxes and hexes from her spell books.

She kept up the routine of practicing this for another 7 days, other than that the week was rather boring and there was nothing else to do.

But on July 1st, she received an unexpected letter by owl post.

The letter read…

_Dear Miss Merope Gaunt,_

_We are delighted to announce that we, The Ministry of Magic, are officially & publicly presenting the two artefacts that you handed to us on the 22__nd__ of June 1900. It would be o our satisfaction if you would attend the ceremony, where you will be the youngest witch in history to receive an award for services to the wizarding community._

_The ceremony will take place on the 4__th__ of July 1900, please wear a casual yet decent dress. Please come to the Ministry at 9:15am, as the ceremony begins at 10am sharp. Your "reason for visit" (as to be the least suspicious and attention-seeking) will be that you're visiting for inheritance reasons, but keep your badge- the one from your last visit- under your cloak until you are inside Mr Fudge's office. Wear a cloak with a hood, just as a precaution. _

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minister for Magic_

Merope knew she had to go; otherwise the press would be very unhappy if the receiver did not attend the award ceremony. So that was that, she would go to the ceremony, no matter how shy she was of the press.

"Screw the press," Merope muttered, "I'll go to the ceremony."


	6. Chapter 6

On the morning of July 4th, 1900; the orphanage was filled with Hogwarts students whom Merope had not noticed these last few days. Merope had woken up bright and early this morning, though rather nervous about the extreme publicity she was about to receive.

The early morning was now shining through her, now stained glassed, window, brining coloured light into her room.

Merope did her usual morning routine: get up, bathe, brush her hair and get dressed. She was unusually giddy this morning about becoming famous. But hey, that's the way the human mind works.

She had a large bowl of porridge and two cups of tea. She grabbed her cloak and badge, and ran out of the orphanage door before 8:30am.

At 9am sharp, Merope arrived at the Ministry of Magic & secretly tiptoed to the Historical Artefacts office, quietly went in & closed the door behind her, and let out a relieving sigh.

"Good morning Miss Gaunt, said Fudge, standing behind her, "you're a few minutes early of the planned meeting time."

Merope jumped. Fudge had almost scared Merope out of her wits.

"Oh! It's only you, Mr Fudge. You gave me quite a fright. I almost think you were someone else, sir," Merope said rather relieved.

Merope was worried that if someone saw in the wrong part of the Ministry, they would escort her out of the building. The ceremony was going to begin in half an hour. The Minister of Magic walked in five minutes later in his best black robes.

"Good morning Fudge, Good Morning Miss Gaunt," the Minister exclaimed happily, right now, he was loving that the Ministry was getting attention from the press.

"Good morning Minister," Merope replied, offering her hand to shake; he shook it lightly.

Merope, Fudge & the Minister discussed how the ceremony would go. Merope would receive the award, thank the Minister, step down, and she would NOT be making a speech. At 9:55am, they stood up, held the artefacts in their glass cases and walked down to the atrium. Merope was in-between Fudge and the Minister, mostly so she wasn't bombarded with questions by the press.

The ceremony went according to plan, Merope received her award, allowed for two minutes for photo taking, thanked the Minister, and stepped down from the podium and let the Minister make the rest of the announcements about the artefacts would be returning to their home at Hogwarts and that protective enchantments would placed on it to prevent their theft. The ceremony had ended at 12pm, after all the questions had been answered and all photographs had been taken.

Merope finally got back to the orphanage at 1pm. She changed out of her special clothes and put on an everyday dress, her hair no longer had pretty silver ribbons in them, and her pigtails became one single plait that went down her back.

Once she'd freshened up, she went to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch. It was beef stew and pasta salad. She thought the salad was delicious, but the stew was barely potable. All together, the meal was rather good on average, so she decided to ask the barman to thank the cook for such a good meal. But she didn't quite understand why the barman had blushed at her comment.

At 1:45pm, she went out to explore the alley for a few more hours as it was rather boring to sit in the orphanage for the rest of the afternoon, also the possible prospect that she would have no peace from anyone due to the fact that her name & photograph will probably be somewhere in the _Daily Prophet_ tomorrow.

After four hours of exploring and getting used to the alley's layout, Merope returned to the orphanage just in time for dinner. There was turkey roast and chicken pies and assorted pastries. And for dessert, there was apple pie, sweet pumpkin pie and even very rich chocolate pie.

For the first time ever while she was at the orphanage, she felt as though she'd eaten too much.


End file.
